Apparently Sony’s now-outdated hardware actually was perfect at rendering reality.

Every time a new generation of hardware appears, boasting higher specs than the one its replacing, gamers and developers say this is going to be the time we finally achieve graphics so good they’re indecipherable from reality. Then a couple years later even better hardware comes out, and people look back on the previous systems and think “Wait, how could we have been so impressed by games that look so fake?”

As a result, right now, the quick verbal shorthand to say CG visuals look cheap and unconvincing is to say they look like a PlayStation 2 or 3 game. Except, maybe that shouldn’t be an insult, because as Japanese Twitter user @BristolShubun recently proved, sometimes that’s exactly what real life looks like.

“My dog totally looks like a Photoshopped image,” tweeted @BristolShubun with the photo, mentioning another thing it arguably looks more like than real life. But @BristolShubun assures us the Shiba Inu is real.

Part of what makes the photo so surreal is the leash, which stretches up into the sky and looks like it should be being held in the hand of someone who’s been digitally scrubbed from the photo. But actually it’s attached to a rope that runs above the yard, giving the dog more space to run around.

Still, some commenters couldn’t help feeling like the Shiba looks more like a video game companion than a real-life pet, and the effect is even more convincing when you add a text box so it can give you a quest prompt.

▼ Dog: “Hey, you! Yeah, you! How about cutting this rope for me, huh?”

https://twitter.com/rikutojam/status/1288810954336026627

Others saw the pooch’s food/water dish as some sort of on-screen icon like maybe an indicator to show how full an NPC is.

Some of the other background details look like items you should be able to pick up on your adventure, like these “shoes” that would probably boost your defense and evade stats if you equipped them (though they turned out to be a stack of plant pots.

And to further illustrate how much @BristolShubun’s Shiba looks like Photoshop, someone added a few more pooches to the picture, and it still doesn’t look all that much less believable than the original photo.

@BristolShubun has taken the jabs with good humor, with a follow-up tweet saying:

“Your dog looks like an indie game.” → I agree!
“Your dog looks like a PS2-4 game.” → I agree!
“Your dog looks like Shenmue.” → I agree!
“Your dog looks like some other CG modeling program/game.” → I agree!
“Your dog is cute.” → I agree !
“Is this really not Photoshop?” → Are you saying my pet is imaginary…?
“Your dog looks like Final Sword.” → Noooooo!

One more thing that’s shown up repeatedly in reactions: an appreciation for @BristolShubun’s yard walls, which look more like something you’d see on a fortress to keep out invading samurai and treacherous ninja than just a simple marker for the edge of your property.

But hey, when you’ve got a dog that looks like it just might be a video game character, it makes sense that you live in a house that just might be a castle.

Source, image: Twitter/@BristolShubun
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he still remembers how impressive Toshinden looked when it first came out.